asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health whether he is aware that a large number of cottage tenants and others residing in and around the village of Shinrone, County Offaly, have made repeated unsuccessful applications to the Offaly Board of Health and to the Irish Land Commission for plots or allotments of land; whether the rents payable at present by the cottage tenants to the board of health include the provision of a cottage and plot; whether he is aware that Shinrone is surrounded by hundreds of acres of land used for grazing purposes; and if he will state what action, if any, he proposes taking for the purpose of providing plots for the large number of cottage tenants and others in this area who are anxious to secure and work same.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Plots for Offaly Tenants.
No representations were received in my Department that there have been repeated unsuccessful applications from the Shinrone Parish Council to the Offaly Board of Health and Public Assistance and the Irish Land Commission for plots or allotments. Inquiries were made recently in the offices of the board of health and it was ascertained that the board communicated last March with the Shinrone Parish Council to submit names of probable applicants for allotments and that the parish council submitted a list of 36 names, but were unable to procure land by agreement. No further action appears to have been taken at the time.
The rent of a labourer's cottage is fixed in respect of the cottage and plot, if any, let with the cottage. There is no land attached to the cottages in the village of Shinrone built by the former Roscrea Rural District Council. During the 1914-1918 war that council acquired 17 acres of land for allotments for tenants of cottages in villages which had no land attached. It appears that these plots were not used by the tenants of the cottages, but were sub-let to other persons. The land thus acquired was appropriated by the Offaly Board of Health for a housing scheme.
As regards the latter part of the question, it is understood the board of health within the last three weeks wrote to parish councils in connection with the proposed provision of land for cultivation in allotments during the coming season.
The matter is one for the board. If I am asked to invest them with compulsory powers I shall consider the matter.
I do not want to press the Minister unduly, but I should like to suggest that the case is so bad that he should ask one of his Departmental inspectors to investigate the circumstances again.